For a do-it-yourself, all-you-can-eat
experience that is also loads of fun,
head to Urban Hot Pot in the Galvan at
Twinbrook apartments on Rockville Pike
for Chinese hot pot. While at your table,
you choose a variety of vegetables and
proteins from a conveyor belt passing by or
order them from an iPad, then cook them
in your individual pot of simmering broth
(there are three choices of ;avors). There’s
also a make-your-own-dipping-sauce bar.

Pro tip: This place is busy, so use the Yelp
Nowait app to put your name on a waitlist
before you arrive. Prices: $18.99 for lunch
Monday through Friday; $25.99 all other
times. Half price for kids younger than 10.

1800 Rockville Pike, H2, Rockville;

240-669-6710; urbanhotpot.com

BEST TREND

Asian food halls are a popular new take on the classic food court,
and Montgomery County is hopping on the bandwagon. The Spot is
a case in point. When the 6,200-square-foot, 200-seat food hall—
featuring poke bowls, fresh pulled noodles, Hong Kong waf;e cones
and more—opened in downtown Rockville in July, it drew crowds.

At the Edmonston Crossing shopping center on Rockville Pike in
Rockville, Pike Kitchen, a 6,200-square-foot, 100-seat hall, opened
in October. Eateries there—offering Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches,
pho, poke, ramen, bibimbap and more—include Pike Chicken & Beer,
K Street Food, Viet, Bowl Play, Monster Snowcream & Tea, Kogyro,
Japomen and Pike Bakery. Coming up later this year is another Asian
food hall, also on Rockville Pike. The Block, at Pike & Rose, will be
an 8,500-square-foot, 250- to 300-seat outpost of the wildly popular
food hall of the same name in Annandale, Virginia, and will feature
Taiwanese shaved ice and poke among its eight stalls, plus a bar.
The Spot, 255 N. Washington St., Rockville, thespotdmv.com; Pike Kitchen, 1066 Rockville Pike, Rockville, 301-603-2279, pikekitchen.com